The known methods for the vulcanising of tires can be subdivided into two groups, namely vulcanising with a bellows arrangement and vulcanising without a bellows arrangement.
In vulcanising with a bellows arrangement, there are a number of serious disadvantages, for example, the fact that the bellows have to be replaced after a relatively short service life, so that there has been an increasing tendency towards carrying out the vulcanising of tires without the use of such a bellows arrangement.
In known vulcanising devices not using bellows i.e. bellowless devices, a tire blank is pressed, in the neighbourhood of the tire bead and by means of substantially disc shaped clamping arrangements, against the bead sections of a vulcanising mold.
It has been found disadvantageous in this context that the tire blank, during the vulcanising operation, is completely covered in the bead zone and the vulcanising medium cannot therefore penetrate to it, so that temperature gradients occur in the tire bead which result in a substantial impairment of its quality.